Installers are saying Pro-Logic II better than DD or DTS! (1 Viewer)

[Todd Smigelski]

Long story short, my brother had an installation team set up a Home theater system in his new house complete with plasma screen, in wall speakers, denon reciever, denon dvd player the whole 9 yards. In addition wired the rest of his house for sound.

Trouble is they are only setting him up with PLII in the main HT room. When I stopped over his house and realized I wasnt able to achieve DD or DTS for him ... he brought this to the installation teams' attention.

Their response was PLII is better than DD or DTS anyway.

Much appreciated if any of you would provide some of your responses to this statement.

Todd

 

[DaveF]

That doesn't make any sense!?! How are they "only setting up PLII"? Any DPLII (Dolby Pro-Logic II) capable receiver will certainly also do DD and DTS. My three-year old $600 Onkyo receiver does that.

Did they not connect the DVD digital output to the receiver's digital input (for sound)? Or did they just hook the stereo outputs of the DVD to the stereo inputs of the receiver? If that's the case, he really has incompetent installers.

DPLII is quite good though, and approaches DD5.1 in channel separation (at least to the average listener).

 

[Todd Smigelski]

Dave,
They tried to connect the coax digital input but they were still unsuccessful in achieving DD or DTS so then proceeded to say "well its a better format anyway".

 

[Hartwig Hanser]

Well, on my Rotel RSP 1066, DD or DTS sound cleary better than Prologic II. Dialogue is clearer, split surrounds better defined. On some movies, Prologic gives you more signal in the rear speakers, since it interpretes unintentional phase shifts of the main channels as signals intended for rear, which they aren´t in this case. But this can also make dialogue sound more muddy or hollow. So, DD and DTS is the better was, if this sound option exists of a DVD. LD is another thing, since they have uncompressed PCM stereo which may sound better in some cases, for exampe with music.

 

[gregD]

That "response" is unacceptable.

Make the inept and/or misleading installers come back and set your brother up with complete connectivity, so he can enjoy any and all options... if they don't know how to do that, demand the installation fee back and hire someone who understands the process and equipment.

 

[terence]

This is just absurd, and just plain lazziness on the installers part. How can you call yourself an installer and you can't (trouble shoot) figure out how to get a DD,DTS bit stream to go from one component to another!

This is bad business plain & simple! They can't fix the problem so they say well....DPLII is better than both 5.1 formats?! They only pulling this crap because they think the customer has NO clue to what is going on. Something stinks man and it's not you and your brother.

 

[EricKH]

DPLII is primarily used to convert non-surround material into surround sound. DD and DTS sound much better to my ears when the material is encoded as such

 

[David Judah]

It's scary that there are people like that doing business. They probably just didn't turn on the digital outputs in the DVD player audio menu or didn't assign the digital inputs on the receiver--what incompetence.

I'd be concerned about other aspects of their installation as well.

DJ

 

[DaveF]

Either the installers are incompetent or the hardware is broken (or both). As said, DPLII isn't better than DD and DTS. It's really a different thing altogether (as EricKH said).

They need to properly install the system so the receiver gets the digital signal from the DVD player (or whatever the output device is).

 

[JohnSmith]

Change the setting to bitstream output on the DVD setup screen. And make sure it's set to whatever ratio his display is. That'll fix it. Not that you shouldu do it yourself...and the monkeys probably charged for installation.

 

[Kevin_W]

Bottom line is he is owed the functionality he paid for. Their subjective opinion on formats is irrelevant. Whether DPII is better or not is not the point. He bought a receiver that supports XYZ formats, they installed and configured it, they owe him what he paid for.

end of story.

 

[Claude M]

they are used to dealing with people who don't know any better. that type of answer works for them most of the time. have your brother tell them they are full of it and to fix it.

 

[PatrickDT]

I totally agree with everyone here, bro. PLII is pretty much taking an inately analog audio ancoding, and trying to render some surround out of it, it's not wonderful, but it's the most you can get from older films, and the like. DD and DTS are the only (mainsteam) discrete channel, all digital interfaces, and it would be absurd to take a source material encoded as such, and render to a pseudo-analog format. I would be punching those installers in the face... with bullets...

 

[John Garcia]

Professional installers that can't get DD/DTS to work? Sounds like someone is getting ripped off.

PLIIX may be closer to DD/DTS, but PLII is defintely not.

 

[Todd Smigelski]

Thanks everyone. This was the input i needed.

After the installer found out there was no digital interconnect from the dvd player to the reciever he thought he was finished when he brought a coax from his truck. He then proceeded to think the reciever should then auto-find the dvd signal w/o going into any menus to assign that dvd source to that coax.

 

[George Caronan]

In no absolute way is Dolby Pro Logic II or IIx better than either Dolby Digital [EX] or DTS [ES Discrete/Matrix]. It seems like a just a lousy answer to a team that does not want to be bother with after doing the work. How can they quantify that it is better? Considering they are "professionals" [loosely said given their attitude], they ought to know the difference with all the decoding formats. That is ridiculous. Good luck and I sincerely hope it will be taken care of.

 

[Stephen_Opipari]

Wow, that's just base incompetence. I notice you are quite close to me. May I ask who the company was?

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I would bet a setting needed to be changed on the DVD player or on the receiver to accept the digital signal. It probably takes about 3 clicks of the remote.

This really makes me wonder how many people out there who get the systems installed aren't getting DD/DTS and don't even realize it.

Perhaps I'll start a service where I come out and follow up on the installers. What do you suppose I could charge for something like that?

 

[Phil A]

What makes you think someone who does installation work knows anything about what sounds good? I've seen many installers who should stick to terminating cable and running it through walls. A podiatrist is a doctor too, does that mean if you need brain surgery that is what your choice would be? Set it up and listen for yourself.

 

[Todd Smigelski]

Stephen_Opipari,
My brother lives in Toledo, Ohio. Not sure of the company name but I know they are a small outfit.